


Winter Soldier

by trajektoria



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Comedy, Fluff, Harry Potter References, M/M, Reyes is Extra™, Scott is a grump, winter shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 07:38:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14930012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trajektoria/pseuds/trajektoria
Summary: Scott hates winter. And he hates Voeld too. It takes a sudden and unexpected encounter to change his mind.





	Winter Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to [captainjennhart](http://captainjennhart.tumblr.com/) who is the best beta ever. You rock! <3
> 
> Kudos and comments mean a lot to me, thanks for reading!

**Prompt: “A sweet and funny story where Scott and Reyes have been too busy to see each other and Reyes decides to change that with a surprise visit to Scott…in the middle of a fire fight.”**

 

Scott Ryder was, in general, an optimistic and easygoing man. Always wanting to help, a treasure trove of lame jokes, with a constant and genuine smile on his face, which made people respond positively to his natural charms. In short, Andromeda’s brightest ray of sunshine.

No one was perfect though, and there was one thing that Scott hated with the passion of a burning sun.

Winter.

No words could properly describe the depths of loathing Scott felt towards that hellish season. Everything grated on his nerves: the cold, the snow, the harsh, biting wind. One snowflake on the horizon and he turned into an insufferable grump, bitching and moaning incessantly about how miserable he was and how much he’d prefer to get back to Kadara or even Elaaden.

No surprise then that Voeld won the well-deserved award for his most disliked place in the Heleus Cluster. Every time he had to go there he groaned for at least three hours straight.

No one had ever said that the life of a Pathfinder would be pleasant, so he always heeded the call of duty and followed where he was needed regardless of personal preference. He did what he had to, but he didn’t have to like it, right? 

Snow or not, at least he was never bored on Voeld.

“More on the right!” Scott shouted from behind a boulder, throwing blindly a Singularity deeper into the cave. A few Roekaar began floating helplessly among the stalactites, an easy mark for Jaal’s and Vetra’s guns.

“Where are these guys coming from? Are they breeding new soldiers as we speak?” grumbled Vetra, putting a bullet right between the eyes of one angara.

“It’s one of their bigger bases, we need to take them all down!” boomed Jaal, pulling the trigger of his sniper rifle.

Scott carefully leaned out and peeked to assess the situation, but had to hide immediately when a hail of bullets flew in his direction.  He cursed under his breath, letting his thoughts wander off towards Kadara. He would give an arm and a leg to be there right now, at the bank of one of the lakes, sunbathing and sipping drinks with Reyes. Alas, Pathfinders had precious little free time, always hurrying from one place to another. The last time he’d visited his boyfriend must have been… three weeks ago or so. The realization stung. And all that just to have a shoot-out in a cold, dank cave on the worst planet in the galaxy. Life was cruel.

“Have I told you yet how much I hate Voeld?” he said over the sounds of gunfire.

“Yes!” replied Jaal and Vetra in unison.

“Okay, but I really hate it.”

“We know!”

Scott opened his mouth to add some details, expanding on what he hated in particular, when a giant explosion shook the cave, making his teeth chatter. Bursts of assault rifle fire followed right away, accompanied by laugher. Very familiar laughter. And an even more familiar voice.

“Thought you could use a helping grenade, Scott!”

Stunned, Scott peeked over the boulder again. The sight that unfolded before his eyes made his jaw drop.

Reyes was sliding down from the opening in the cave’s ceiling like some damn action hero, one hand on the rope, the other aiming and shooting at the concussed Roekaars. Although action heroes rarely wore blue woolen hats with big, red pompoms and a striped Slytherin scarf.

“Reyes?” Scott muttered, thinking that he must have been drugged and was going through a very bad trip. He glanced at his friends, but Jaal and Vetra seemed as baffled as he was.

“It is I!” Reyes jumped down, rolled to the side for cover and took down the few remaining angara with clean, precise shots.

The silence that fell over the cave was a testament to how successful he was at exterminating the opposition. Scott probably should have said something but he couldn’t find the right words. Or any words, for that matter.

“Seems to be it.” Reyes stood up and swaggered, confident and smug, over to his lover, who still stared at him as if he had seen a ghost. Still, Scott didn’t protest when Reyes took him in his arms and pressed their lips together triumphantly, high as a kite on adrenaline. Like a true damn action hero from one of those crappy movies from the Milky Way that Scott watched as a kid.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Scott asked what was probably on everyone’s mind. But even the complete surprise of it all couldn’t stop a smile from appearing on his face. No matter the circumstances, it was nice to see Reyes again, whom he missed so much. And even in that ridiculous hat Reyes was still a handsome man, Scott couldn’t deny that. Especially with his face colored by the cold and exertion.

“I had to visit Voeld for some Collective business. And then I heard that the Pathfinder himself was in the vicinity, taking these pesky Roekaar head-on. Well, I jumped into my shuttle and the rest is, as they say, history.”

“You’re insane,” Scott said, but not without fondness in his voice. Reyes’ grin couldn’t possibly be wider.

“And you wouldn’t want me any other way, hm?”

Scott’s gaze was dead fixed on his lover but out of the corner of his eyes he noticed Jaal and Vetra exchanging glances.

“Do you want to go with him? We can take the Nomad back to the base,” offered the turian. Scott could kiss her right now, although his boyfriend probably would have some understandable objections to such a display of affection. As would Vetra. 

“Yeah. Thanks, do that.”

With a parting wink at the Pathfinder’s squadmates, Reyes took Scott’s hand and led him deeper into the cave, saying that there was a back entrance where he had parked his shuttle. It didn’t come as a surprise to Scott that Reyes knew the layout of this place. Smugglers had their ways. At least they didn’t have to climb out of here using the rope.

After a short walk among the stalagmites, they finally found the way out. Scott felt the snow sticking to his boots and groaned, making a face. Reyes’ shuttle was just a dozen feet away, but every second spent outside felt like a punishment.

“What’s wrong? Why so grumpy?” Reyes asked, smiling in a ridiculously bubbly way. Scott gave him a pointed look.

“Why so cheerful?”

“You kidding? I love Voeld!” Reyes said eagerly, excitement taking a few years off his face.

Scott stared at him in disbelief bordering on annoyance.

“You what? How can you love this frosty hellhole?”

“I’d never seen snow before coming to Andromeda,” he confessed, his smile wider than Scott deemed decent.

“For real?”

“Yeah. And it’s amazing.”

Scott begged to differ.

“I can’t really see the appeal,” he said. Reyes let go of his hand and walked to the side. Scott barely noticed, lost in a heated rant. “It’s cold and horrible and–”

Words died on his tongue when a snowball hit him smack in the face. He blinked in shock. Then blinked in anger, aiming his glare at Reyes, who was laughing so hard that he almost fell over. The bastard.

“Oh no, you didn’t.”

“Come on, Ryder. Snowball fight!”

Scott huffed, not amused. Extremely not amused.

“Not a chance.”

“Of a snowball in hell?”

Scott groaned. That pun alone deserved retaliation. He lifted his arms, making them light up with purple biotic energy. The snow around them started to levitate. Reyes paled somewhat, looking up at a sizeable avalanche hovering right above his head.

“Scott, come on–“

“Don’t you ‘Scott’ me, you brought it on yourself.”

And then the Pathfinder let everything fall onto his boyfriend with a vengeance. In a second Reyes turned into a snowman. A very Reyes-shaped snowman that shook so much from laughing that he shed the excess of snow almost instantly.

Scott stared at him in bafflement. He had never seen Reyes so happy, so childlike, so genuinely excited without a shred of his usual restraint and level-headedness. It was… adorable, really. Without even realizing it, he smiled.

“Don’t be like that, winter can be fun,” Reyes said, emboldened by Scott’s smile. He didn’t seem upset by the attack. “I’ll prove it to you.”

“I wonder how.” Scott shook his head. “It’s cold and awful.”

“I think I can help with that.” Reyes reached to his own neck, slowly unwrapping the scarf. Scott watched in surprise how he then draped it around him. Warmth and Reyes’ scent enveloped him. “Please take it. You can think of me every time you’re on Voeld. Maybe it won’t be as awful anymore.”

Scott’s expression softened. A big, dopey smile tugged at his lips. More touched than he wanted to admit, he immediately turned to jokes as a defense mechanism.

“A Slytherin scarf? Really? I mean, I’m clearly a Gryffindor.”

Reyes chuckled.

“I’ll do my best to smuggle an appropriate one for you.”

That declaration warranted a kiss.

“Never would have pegged you for a geek though,” said Scott. Reyes truly was a man full of surprises.

“Come on, Scott, I loved those books as a kid.”

“Me too.”

“But I still love winter more.”

With that, he snaked his arms around Scott and let himself fall down to the ground, pulling his lover along with him. Yelping in panic, the Pathfinder landed on his side, snow preventing him from sustaining any damage. Even though he was still in Reyes’ arms, he was far from pleased. In fact, he boiled from so much rage that Voeld’s overall temperature must have risen by at least five degrees. But Reyes was unapologetic. Laughing, the Charlatan rolled back a little and started to drag his arms and legs through the snow.

“What are you doing?” Scott groaned.

“Snow angel. You should make one too!”

Scott rolled his eyes. Hard.

“How old are you? Two?”

“And you? Two hundred?” countered Reyes.

Scott sighed with exasperation.

“Whatever. Sure, why not.”

Grudgingly, feeling like an idiot, he did what Reyes asked him to do.

Reyes sat up, judging his creation with a pensive look on his face.

“A very pretty angel. The one you made on the snow is not bad either.”

Scott huffed dismissively, but the blush creeping up to his cheeks showed that he wasn’t completely immune to his boyfriend’s charm.

Before he could say something, he felt Reyes’ cold lips on his, slowly warming up from the sweet kiss they shared.

Okay, maybe winter wasn’t all that bad after all.


End file.
